Indian Canadian admits to beheading two-year-old daughter

Vancouver, Feb 3 (IANS) An Indian-Canadian father, who had strangled and then decapitated his two-year-old daughter in the Vancouver suburb of Delta last year, has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Forty-eight-year-old Lakhvinder Singh Kahlon had slit the throat of his toddler on the morning of Jan 18 last year at the family home when his wife, Manjit, was away to drop their two elder daughters to school.

When she returned home, the wife found the two-year-old Ravinder beheaded.

A construction worker, Kahlon had already had two daughters and was not happy about the birth of Ravinder. After her birth, he had left his work and stayed at home most of the time.

Kahlon, who faced a first-degree murder charge, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Monday in the provincial British Columbia Supreme Court in New Westminster near here.

He faces the mandatory life sentence to be announced Thursday, with the possibility of a parole after 10 years.

The court admitted Kahlon’s guilty plea after a psychiatrist testified about his psychological state.

The court also took into account the testimony of a police officer who posed as a prisoner and spoke with Kahlon.

The police officer told the court that Kahlon told him that the toddler became victim of his frustration after his fights with his wife over their financial situation.

The killing of the toddler had sent shockwaves in the whole Indian Canadian community in Canada.

New immigrants to Canada, the Kahlon family had settled in the Indian-dominant Delta-Surrey area in Vancouver’s suburb.